Now, what will MVA do with the tweaked farm bills?

Protesters block roads as part of a Chakka Jam against the farm laws, in Kurla East, on February 6. File pic

Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to repeal the farm laws, the Opposition-ruled West Bengal, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Kerala had rejected the implementation of these laws in their states. However, the Opposition in Maharashtra, which had given the anti-Modi movement further momentum by installing a tripartite Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government of the BJP's pre-poll ally Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress, took a different route altogether. Instead of rejecting them, the MVA decided to amend the Centre's acts, which by then were suspended by the Supreme Court. The MVA ministers who spoke while tabling the amendments lashed out at the BJP government for having brought the farmers to such a stage of protest, yet they tried to convince the farmers why the reforms, amended in the way the MVA thought they should be, would only benefit those in Maharashtra and prove the Modi legislation anti-farmer. The bills were put in the public domain for a period of two months for feedback just ahead of the monsoon, for taking them up during the winter session of the state legislature.

The move invited the ire of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), which has MVA's smaller allies and the pro-MVA activists, who have been participating in the protests at the Delhi borders. The MVA's decision was debunked by the committee, which questioned the logic. "The amendment bills introduced by the MVA government are a betrayal of the ongoing farmers' movement about which each of the honourable ministers who tabled the bills expressed deep sympathy," the committee had said in a joint statement signed by Dr Ashok Dhawale, Raju Shetty (ex-MP), Medha Patkar, Pratibha Shinde, Namdev Gawde, SV Jadhav, Dr Ajit Nawale, Kishore Dhamale, Subhash Kakuste, Subhash Lomte, Seema Kulkarni, Raju Desale and Nitin Mate. After Modi's decision, the committee wants the state to scrap the bills. A minister in the MVA says since the Centre will repeal the laws, they would not come into force in the state.

But then the auto-repeal wouldn't stop questioning the MVA's intent in pushing ahead the reforms in a tweaked form, that also have been described as detrimental to the farmers' interests and favourable to corporates. The AIKSCC said it believed that the MVA acted under pressure from the corporate lobby and the union government. "The recent inaction firmly establishes MVA's anti-farmer and pro-corporate stand," it had said.

Why did the MVA, which wasn't any less aggressive against the BJP-controlled Centre six months ago, take a middle path? The MVA may have reacted sharply to the PM's announcement, calling it the victory of the farmers and common man, but it cannot deny that it had seen in the Centre's laws some substance that it thought of upgrading instead of dismissing it entirely. Why?

The answer may lie in the reforms Maharashtra's Congress-NCP government had introduced for the first time in the country some 15 years ago. The market reforms bore fruit for village-level farm producers' agri-business companies and private entities. With the Centre/state laws gone, these companies and stakeholders would require a new legal framework if the existing state laws don't suffice. The political stakeholders in the MVA will also have to think in that direction as and when the need arises.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra's farmers, who had been guaranteed minimum support price against the validity of farming agreement and protection against illegal trading by middlemen, will have to wait further for new similar arrangements. The state had taken powers to regulate or prohibit production, supply, distribution, and impose limits under extraordinary circumstances, which may include famine, price rise and natural calamity.

The Centre's law provided the power only to the Centre in this regard. We should know what is in store for the farmers and other stakeholders in the agri-business ecosystem ahead of another game-changing election descending upon us.

Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore

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